


Even Superheroes Need Breaks

by loserprincess



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Reader doesn't know who Peter is, Reader is childhood friends with Ned, She doesn't even go to Midtown High, She just rlly likes Spider Man
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2018-12-07 02:42:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11614233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loserprincess/pseuds/loserprincess
Summary: "Hey, Ned?I think I'm dating Spider-Man."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I loved Spider-Man: Homecoming so much and I just need Peter Parker in my life, man. This chapter is really short but I promise I'm going to work on longer chapters in the future. I just need to get the ball rolling first.

The red fire escape of your building was a fun little hangout you had made for yourself. There was nothing fancy about it at all. Nothing personalized, not even a small plant on the landing where you sat, but it was your spot. You would sit there every night, headphones in your ears as your feet dangled over the ledge and your body slumped against one of the two horizontal bars that kept you from falling.

Not a lot of things happened while you were out, until one night a lot of things happened in quick succession.

It was a robbery in the alley below you, and oh god you did not want to be noticed in case he had a gun. You were about to stand up from your spot and sneak back inside to call the cops, but then your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man had swung through the alley, and your eyes were now glued to the scene before you.

You moved to take your headphones out of your ears as the web-slinger shot out a stream of fluid, taking the knife out of the mugger’s hand and quickly webbing it to the side of the wall.

“Short on cash, bud?”

The man growled, moving to punch the web-head in the face as the woman Spider-Man had saved snatched up her purse and ran out of there.

You blinked as Spider-Man dodged the punch, crawling up the wall and spotting you watching it all.

“Were you planning on helping, or-?” he asked, mirth in his voice.

With the way the eyes on his masked moved you could only guess that he was raising his eyebrows, and you smiled sheepishly. Pulling off one of your shoes, you threw it down toward the mugger, managing to hit him square on the head through sheer luck.

Spidey laughed as you grinned, watching him swing down and finish the job by webbing the guy to the wall.

He retrieved your shoe from the alley, bringing it back up to you and placing it beside you on the fire escape.

“You really should’ve called the cops instead of staying up here.”

His voice cracked the tiniest amount as he said this, and you realized that Spider-Man may be more boy than he was man.

“I was going to, but how could I resist meeting our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I’ve seen the notes you’ve left on stolen bikes. It’s cute.”

“Cute, huh?”

The web-head blushed, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked at you. This was one of the times he was thankful that he had his mask—besides the whole secret identity thing of course.

You picked up your shoe and slipped it back on, moving over a tad and patting the space beside you.

“You wanna take a break? Even heroes need breaks sometimes.”

He grinned under his mask at your gesture, taking the opportunity and sitting beside you.

“Don’t mind if I do…”

“[Y/N].”

You smiled at him, kicking your feet a little as the dangled over the ledge.

“And yeah, cute.”

You looked over at him and your eyes twinkled, and that was the second that Peter noticed just how pretty you were. He gulped, realizing that you might be flirting with him. With Spider-Man, he corrected himself, shaking his head a tiny bit as the two of you continued to talk.

“How’s the hero thing going for you anyway, Spidey? Lots of bad guys to nab?”

“Not really. It’s mostly helping old ladies with directions, with the occasional mugging here and there.”

You laughed, a wide smile breaking onto your face as you looked over at him. The two of you continued your slightly awkward conversation, and you slowly learned things about the web-slinger. They were always vague little things that didn't hold much weight, but they were interesting nonetheless. By the end of your conversation you had learned that Spider-Man was, in fact, a highschool boy, his favorite sandwich shop had gotten blown up, and that he "larbed" the Thai food larb.

Comfortable silence enveloped the two of you as you realized that talking to this masked superhero was probably cutting into is hero time, leaving you to scoot back from your place on the landing and stand up.

“If you ever need a break, swing by. I’ll probably be here.”

Peter looked up at you, eyes widening for a second before he moved to stand up as well.

“You sure? Kind of suspicious to have a superhero hang around one place for a while.”

You laughed, leaning against the railing and looking up at him. “Don’t worry about it, Spidey. It’s not like you have to stop by every day.” You stuck your tongue out childishly, shooting him a bright smile right afterwards.

He simply nodded at you, and if you were right about the way the contours of his mask moved, he was smiling right back at you.

“Well, I’ve kinda got to get home. I’m pretty sure I have homework.”

You shook your head with a smile, moving towards the door to go back into your building.

“See ya, Spider-Man.”

You watched him swing off of the fire escape and around the corner before you looked down, and realized the criminal from earlier was still webbed to the wall.

"Shit. I should probably take care of that."

You let out a small chuckle before slipping back inside of your apartment building, ready to awkwardly tell your dad about your run-in with Spider-Man and that you had to call the cops.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I have a longer chapter for you this time! I'm hoping that my writing gets good enough for the chapters get longer and longer, so wish me luck! Comments are appreciated, and a big thank you to everyone who left a kudos on my work!

It had been a week and a half since the famous web-slinger had passed by your fire escape hangout, and you were starting to believe that he was never going to show up again.

The first few days after your meeting, you had been dressing up for a little bit more than simply chilling out on a fire escape with a pair of headphones. But once a week had passed without any sign of the masked hero, you became a little discouraged about the whole thing. He was still on the news, and when you were walking home from school one day you swore you saw him swing by for a millisecond, but other than that, it didn’t seem like Spider-Man was coming back. This left you to return to your usual laziness, which meant that you were outside in sweat pants and a baggy t-shirt. You hadn’t bothered doing your hair at all, which didn’t bother you, as you were quite sure the web-head was going to be an absentee tonight as well, but when the wind picked up and there was hair flung all over your face and into your mouth, you had settled that it was time to go back inside.

 

Peter had pretty much annoyed Ned to absolutely no end this past week. He had spouted on and on about whether he should take you up on your break time offer, and while Ned believed that it couldn’t do much harm, Peter was a little on the fence about it.

“But what if people notice?”

“Pete, didn’t you change behind dumpsters for a while, yknow to become,” Ned’s voice dropped to a whisper, “Spider-Man?”

“I mean I guess, but it’s a little suspicious to drop by some place-“

“Yeah, but they haven’t found out where you live either.”

A long pause followed as Peter simply looked at Ned, his eyes pleading with him to help him get rid of this fear that being Spider-Man around you was going to get you into some form of trouble.

“Pete, why don’t you just go see her? You even said last time that she was flirting with you—“

“I didn’t say she was flirting!”

“Yeah, but you wish she was—“

“Oh my god, Ned, shut up.”

“You did say she was pretty though.”

“She is.”

“Just go see her!”

“Ok!”

Needless to say, “Just go see her!” wasn’t as easy as Ned had made it out to be. Over the days that followed your meeting, Peter had grown to have this strange dissociative crush on you. He would imagine you being with Spider-Man, never himself, but he supposed that was just because he had met you as Spider-Man. It was odd, he knew, but after a mirror pep talk and some rapid pacing back and forth, he guessed that maybe dropping by once in a while wouldn’t actually put you into any danger. There was really no option anyway. He was pretty sure Ned would pretty much explode if he brought up his moral dilemma about you even one more time.

When Peter put on his suit the following day to do his rounds, he had pretty much resolved that he was going to see you.

Swinging his way to your apartment building after his daily rounds was giving Peter nerves. He knew that it had been a while since he had stopped by, and he doubted you would hold it against him, but a tiny voice in the back of his mind told him that you would be less than ecstatic to see him standing on your fire escape.

When Peter didn’t find you on your red fire escape, he thought that maybe he was at the wrong building, but after circling the block and finding that none of the other fire escapes were red—it was convenient, really—he rounded back to your building. Sitting cross-legged on the fire escape, he groaned.

“What seems to be the problem, Peter?”

He jumped a little bit at that, not expecting Karen to suddenly start speaking.

“Nothing really,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand down his face.

“Your actions say otherwise.”

“Alright, aright. It’s just this girl I met—“

“Liz?”

“No,” his voice wavered for a second as Peter saddened before repeating himself, “No.”

“Not Liz?”

“No um, right, you weren’t there for that whole thing, uh, stuff happened. Liz is gone.”

“I’m sorry, Peter.”

“No, no, it’s just this girl I met, she told me to swing by—“

“Oh, you mean the girl you met on this fire escape.”

“Yeah. She’s uh, not here.”

“Did you arrange to meet her?”

“No,” Peter mumbled quietly, eyes darting towards the door into your building.

“Maybe you should leave a note?”

Peter shrugged at that, deciding “why not”, since he was pretty sure no one except you ever came onto your fire escape anyway.

He left the note webbed to the floor of your fire escape, hoping it wouldn’t rain as he made his way back to his apartment.

 

Windy days weren’t your favorite. They blew hair everywhere, along with sand, dust, dirt, and any other trash that was dispersed around the streets, so when the wind finally died down, you were ecstatic. You left your apartment after a quick shout to your dad and headed back out to your usual haunt of a fire escape.

You were not expecting a small card that said “Call me,” in messy scrawl that had an even messier printed phone number written below it to be webbed to your usual seat on the landing.

You went to go pick up the card, but that was definitely a mistake. The web was still sticky, leaving your fingers caught in the strange substance and unable to lift the card from the floor.

“Good job, Spidey,” you whispered to yourself, rolling your eyes as you resigned to wait until the stickiness in the webbing subsided.

 

It had taken the webbing about 15 minutes to dissolve, and you sighed in relief, removing your hand, and the note, from the web-goo that Spider-Man had left behind.

You took your phone out of your pocket, looking at the number on the card for a few seconds before turning your eyes back to your phone. You weren’t exactly sure if you should call the number or not. You knew that Spider-Man was the one who left you the note, and you knew that it was for you, but it felt slightly odd to be calling a superhero on the phone. Calling a superhero was a lot more nerve-wracking than simply dialing up the pizza guy and asking to order a large pizza.

You huffed in frustration, shaking your head at yourself and trying to shake off the nerves that this phone call was giving you. You knew that you should probably call. Who were you to turn down the request of a superhero? But then again, Spider-Man was also a high school boy, so you focused on that.

…That didn’t help.

If anything, thinking about Spider-Man as a high school boy made it worse. Him being a highschool boy made him dateable. What if he was cute? What if Spider-Man actually _liked_ you?

Your thoughts raced a million miles per minute as you set your phone down and placed a hand on your chest to try and calm your racing heartbeat. You focused on the thumps of your heart and took deep breaths, trying to slow your breathing back down to a a pace that could be considered normal. Closing your eyes and taking a deep breath, you picked your phone back up and began dialing the number in.

You looked at your phone after dialing the first few numbers, seeing a bunch of your contacts names pop up as the suggested number to call. You blanched at that, giggling a little afterward. Imagine if Spider-Man was already in your contact list. You continued to type the number in and blinked when you finished it. Ned’s number was still displayed on your screen in the suggested numbers bar, and looking at what you had typed in and looking at Ned’s number, they were identical.

You were confused, no doubt.

Ned was one of your best friends. Your mother had been great friends with his, and you two had pretty much known each other since birth. Your mom had even taken embarrassing pictures of the two of you bathing in the sink together when you were toddlers. Needless to say, you knew Ned very well, and you absolutely knew that he was not Spider-Man. First off, if Ned was Spider-Man, you know he would tell you, or at least, you hoped he would. Second, as much as you loved Ned, he did not have the physique to be a superhero. He’d always been a pretty chubby kid, and since you still hung out on weekends despite going to different high schools, you knew that that hadn’t changed.

You furrowed your eyebrows as you stared at the screen in front of you, pressing on the call button.

Just what did Ned have to do with Spider-Man, anyway?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting you guys! I've been real busy with school lately, since I've had to enroll and deal with financial aid and all that. Comments and kudos are always appreciated and I'm glad that I'm getting such positive feedback on this work!  
> Just for reference:  
> [Y/N] - Your Name  
> [Y/N/N] - Your Nicknam

Ned was sitting on Peter’s bed, watching his friend pace back and forth in front of him. This was ridiculous. Ned had no idea why Peter would give some random girl _his_ phone number instead of Peter’s own. Obviously Peter was making some strange decisions, not to mention the fact that anything having to do with this girl always gave him some sort of anxiety.

“And you gave her my phone number instead of yours because…?” Ned asked, leaning back on his arms as Peter continued to pace back and forth.

There was a short pause as Peter ceased his anxiety-ridden walk and turned to look at his friend. He brushed his sweaty palms against the denim of his pants before groaning and turning in a quick circle. Peter faced Ned once more and gave a half-hearted shrug before opening his mouth.

“I thought maybe if anyone else found the number then you could throw them off my trail?”

It came out more of a question than a statement. Truth be told, Peter had no idea why he had decided to put down Ned’s number instead of his own. He had chalked it all up to nerves. He’d been pretty nervous about just the thought of you ever since that first night. The two of you had clicked pretty well during that late night conversation, but he didn’t know what to do next. Making friends with you was an ideal scenario, but meeting you as Spider-Man instead of himself was making it even more difficult than normal. It’s not as if he could just drop by your apartment, say hi to your parents, and say that the two of you were friends and wanted to watch a movie together. Peter groaned once more, sitting beside Ned and putting his head in his hands.

“That was a real stupid idea, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I would say s-“

Ned was interrupted by his phone ringing and Peter’s heart nearly stopped. He looked over at Ned with eyes wide as Ned picked his phone up off the bed. Ned shook his head at Peter and laughed.

“It’s not her Pete. If it was, I probably wouldn’t already have her number in my phone.”

Ned turned his phone to face Peter, the words “Weirdo #2” displayed on his phone screen.

“Who’s Weirdo #1?” Peter asked, raising an eyebrow at his friend.

“You,” Ned grinned, pressing the green call button.

 

You weren’t sure what Ned had to do with your web-slinging friend, but oh boy were you about to find out. As much as you were surprised that Ned had anything to do with Spider-Man, he was still youe best friend, and you had no problem berating him about keeping secrets through the phone. Spider-Man questions could come later, but right now  you were aggravated with your friend about keeping this secret from you, especially because the two of you were both pretty big fans of the web-head. You would understand if he hadn’t told you who was under the mask, as that was a gross invasion of privacy, but a quick mention of “Hey, I’m friends with Spider-Man,” would’ve been nice. Granted, you hadn’t told Ned about your little fire escape run-in either, but you were waiting to see him in person for that.

“Ned Leeds you have got some explaining to do.”

Ned was taken aback as you spoke into the phone, his eyebrows furrowing at your uncharacteristically aggressive speech.

“I’m sorry, what?” He asked, confusion taking over his features as he stood up from Peter’s bed. “[Y/N/N] what are you talking about?”

Peter looked up at Ned as he spoke into the phone. This didn’t seem too great.

“Look, I understand if you wanted to keep his identity a secret, but a heads-up would’ve been nice. We’ve never had secrets, and this is a pretty big one. We both absolutely love Spider-Man and you didn’t think that it was important to tell me that the two of you were friends?”

Ned’s breath caught in his throat as you continued to ramble on. His eyes widened as he realized that you were the girl that Peter had been talking about. It matched up, he supposed. You had always loved looking at the stars, so it wasn’t too far gone of an idea that you would hang out on a fire escape. He knew Peter had mentioned at one point that the mystery girl had lived on the other side of town―which you did. He moved to sit back down on Peter’s bed, numbly pressing the button to turn the phone on speaker and turning to look at Peter.

“-and you don’t expect me to be completely confused by this? I mean, I know I didn’t tell you either, but I wanted to tell you in person. Like, I don’t think a phone call is good enough. Like ‘Hey, I met Spider-Man on my fire escape and we kinda flirted with each other.’ That’s something you tell someone in person, yknow?”

Peter looked at Ned in disbelief as you finished talking. What were the chances that his best friend actually knew the girl he had met? Slim to none, to be completely honest, and yet here he was, listening to you on Ned’s phone.

There was silence as the two boys tried to process this information, but it was quickly interrupted by your voice through the phone’s speaker.

“Hello? Ned? Are you there?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m here. Sorry [Y/N/N].”

Ned looked over at Peter and shrugged, not knowing what else to do.

“Yeah, you better be.”

Your words were harsh, but with the tone of your voice, Ned knew that since you had gotten your little rant out of your system, you had already forgiven him. He shook his head at you, you had always been like this. Quick to anger, but quick to forgive as well. His thoughts were cut off by the crisp and clear sound of your laugh coming from the phone.

“Ok, but Ned, did I mention that I flirted with Spider-Man? Can you believe that?”

Peter blushed a bit at that, and Ned grinned widely, mischief flashing in his eyes.

“Y’know [Y/N/N], Spider-Man’s been talking to me about you a lot.”

Your face flushed as you sat on your fire escape, kicking your legs as they dangled over the edge of the landing.

Peter’s eyes widened as his head snapped towards his friend.

“Ned,” he hissed. “End the call.”

“He told me he’s planning to see you tomorrow,” Ned grinned at Peter before continuing. “Anyway [Y/N/N], I gotta go.”

“Oh, okay, bye then!” you called into the phone, clicking it off as you looked up at the stars and smiled.

Peter, on the other hand, was looking up at Ned in disbelief, a look of abject horror on his face as his friend ended the call. This was completely out of Ned’s character, and yet here he was.

“What the hell was that?!” Peter exclaimed, a dark red hue covering his face.

“Dude. You’ve been complaining about her all week. You needed a little push.”

Peter groaned, falling backwards onto his bed as thoughts swirled around in his mind. You were Ned’s friend, and not just any friend of Ned’s, you had called him your best friend. More importantly, you had admitted to your best friend that you were flirting with Spider-Man. That meant you were flirting with him.  _You had been flirting with him._ Peter threw an arm over his face to try and stop the blush, but it didn’t help too much. One thing that bothered him, though, was that Ned had never really mentioned much about you, and that confused him. If the two of you were so close then why hadn’t Ned ever said anything? He sat up once more, looking over at Ned who was simply playing games on his phone while Peter himself seemed to be having a crisis.

“Ned?”

“Yeah.”

“Why have you never talked about [Y/N] before?”

Ned looked up from his phone and turned to stare at Peter with incredulity. “Are you serious?”

“What?”

“Peter, I’ve talked about her so many times. You’ve just never paid attention.”

“I think I would’ve noticed if-“

“Liz always seemed to be around when she came up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

A solemn silence followed the short conversation. Liz was still a pretty sore subject, as it had only been a few weeks or so since that whole ordeal had happened. There were still a lot of pieces to pick up, and he saw that her two best friends weren’t dealing with it very well. The two girls would smile and laugh with each other until the conversation would eventually fizzle out, leaving them both in an awkward silence. It was clear to see that Liz was the glue that held the trio together.

Before Peter could break the silence, Ned cleared his throat and stood up.

“It’s getting pretty late. I should probably get home before my mom freaks out.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbled, too lost in his own thoughts to give any proper answer.

“See you, Peter.”

“See you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I know it's been ages since I've posted and all I can say about that is that college is a bitch. This is a relatively short chapter, but I thought I needed something to acknowledge the way that Reader viewed her relationship to Spider-man and the way that Peter idealizes Reader. That's a little hint for future plot ;^) Anyway, thanks to everyone reading and giving feedback and I hope you enjoy!

Peter chewed on his bottom lip under his mask.

He was early.

With legs dangling off of your fire escape and fingers gripping tight on the ledge he groaned, his head tilting back to look at the dimly lit sky. It was so early that the streetlights had barely turned on not ten minutes ago. He knew you liked to watch the stars, but the anxiety that had been rolling through him in waves had pushed him to arrive early. He figured that if he could force himself to come over, that he could just wait it out until you showed up, but as the minutes ticked by, he realized that this was an awful idea.

Peter had never been one for patience. There was no ‘off’ setting for him. The only mode he was set on was ‘go’, and doubling up on the fact that he was a superhero along with this particular character trait only fed into it.

He drummed on the railing, he swung his legs back and forth, paced the small landing a couple hundred times, and even counted the number of grime spots on the wall opposite to him. Waiting was not a fun game.

He groaned, standing from his perch on the landing and looking toward the door. He had to pee.

This was definitely a dilemma, as he couldn’t just waltz into your building as Spider-Man. He mulled the idea over in his head for a little bit before realizing it was probably best to slip his normal clothes on over the suit and just walk in as Peter.

Swinging down into the alley way, Peter wrinkled his nose as he hid behind a dumpster, pulling on jeans, a t-shirt, and a simple hoodie before shoving his mask into his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder.

He began the trek up your fire escape, as he realized that swinging up there wasn’t the best idea, especially if you or anyone else decided to look into the alley or head out your fire escape door. He was breathing a little heavier than usual as he finally got to your floor, wondering to himself why he didn’t just walk into the first floor and take the elevator up. “Hindsight is 20/20,” he mumbled, pushing the building door open with his shoulder.

Peter blinked as he took in the sight of your apartment building, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, really, but he hadn’t realized how massive the building actually was. The hallways stretched on for ages, and it seemed almost maze-like as the hallway he was standing in seemed to curve instead of having a sharp corner. He moved down the hallway, realizing that this had been a stupid idea. There was no need for public bathrooms in an apartment building. It was an apartment building. The bathrooms were inside the apartments. He scrubbed a hand down his face, realizing the stupidity of his actions before turning around to make his way back to the fire escape.

As he moved, he heard a door behind him softly click shut, and as he turned to get a glimpse at who it was, he stopped in his tracks, breath catching in his throat.

It was you, and you were definitely not dressed like you were simply going to hang out on your fire escape. You were standing outside your door, phone in hand as you rummaged through your purse and punched in a number.

“Hey, Ned.”

Peter tensed as you spoke, his attention drawn to the fact that you could easily notice him spying on you as he was smack dab in the middle of the hallway. He moved down the hall a little, thankful that your door was near where the hallways split as he hid behind a corner.

“I think I’m dating Spider-Man.”

He gulped at that, knowing full well that you were joking from your tone, but feeling a blush creep up his neck nonetheless.

“Yeah, dummy, of course I’m joking. We’ve talked like once, in the middle of the night, on my fire escape,” you laughed, the melodic sound escaping your lips as Peter listened in on your conversation with Ned.

“No, but yeah I’m actually standing outside my door, but I’m heading to a party in a sec. I’m just checking that I have all my stuff,” you paused for a second before rolling your eyes, though Peter couldn’t see that. “No, it’s a birthday party for my little cousin. Dad has work today so I’m tasked with showing up, but I am definitely not going to miss talking to my favorite masked superhero.” 

Peter grinned as he heard you inadvertently praise him, his back leaning against the wall of the building as he slowly heard your voice get quieter. You had obviously started walking towards the elevators. The last thing he heard before your voice was shut inside the elevator doors was “Yeah, I’ll be there 2 hours tops.”

As happy as he was to know that he was your favorite, the only thought that ran through his mind was ‘I still need to pee.’


End file.
